Subtitles

[jbellies]

Newbie reaction to 082beta2.

I wonder if it is possible to establish an ini (MLC ?) file for each movie which specifies the subtitles to be used. I don't mind spending 30 seconds to set the subtitles, but to have to do it each time I restart the movie....

I was watching an old Japanese B/W movie in divx. With most movies, there are huge black bands at top and bottom, yet the subtitles show up on the movie itself. Could there be a setting to move the subtitles down onto the black band? If the subtitles have to be over the picture, can I have them in some colour other than White (it's a B/W film)? I was using a .sub file.

I tried to change the de-interlace from "off" to "standard" while the film was running; that caused VLC to crash. I guess I should be kinder, gentler to your lovely software.

Thanks kindly to the authors!

Win2K SP2, 366MHz Pentium 2, 288 MB RAM (a Thinkpad 600E laptop).

--
Jonathan Berry jberry@islandnet.com

[dionoea]

subtitle files with the same name as the movie are automatically loaded by VLC. You just need to enable their display.

[jbellies]

Did not work for me. Click on the movie (VLC loads), stop movie, Ctrl-F, browse to same movie name, check "Subtitle Options", click "OK" did not load filename.sub or filename.idx. In addition, I had to click Settings and browse to the desired subtitles file. Then the subtitles would show.

[The DJ]

Give the sub the same name as the movie, different extension, open the movie. pause
Go to menu video->subtitles-track. select the subtitles track. Done.

[jbellies]

DJ:

When I do what you say, the subtitle options are
- Disable (selected)
- Dansk
The English subtitles are not there.
If I select the Dansk (Danish) option, no subtitles appear = same as Disable. There is no Danish .idx or .sub file, only the English ones.

While I am here, what options should be set to get best picture on a slow computer? I use a 366 MHz P II laptop. The picture is good, but when there is motion (say an arm moving or a person running), there is a bit of jerkiness and a bit of visible interlacing.

--
Jonathan Berry

[Night]

VLC beta2 on OSX

My compliments! All bugs I found in the beta1 release are solved. My compliments also on the classy subtitles. Now all fonts are supported as well as better size handling
As for the preferences, i'd like them to see a little more 'obvious' or better explained.

there's only one big if:
White subtitles on a light background are pourly readable. On TV this is solved bij adding a black dropshadow. Would it be possible to also add this option on VLC 0.8.2?

[Bo]

Is there any way to make vlc selecting subtitle track one by default ?

[henrique]

Did not work for me. Click on the movie (VLC loads), stop movie, Ctrl-F, browse to same movie name, check "Subtitle Options", click "OK" did not load filename.sub or filename.idx. In addition, I had to click Settings and browse to the desired subtitles file. Then the subtitles would show.

Check this topic: viewtopic.php?t=9934.
I had the same doubt but DJ answered me.

[jbellies]

Check this topic: viewtopic.php?t=9934.
I had the same doubt but DJ answered me.

Sorry, still didn't work for me.
Settings > Preferences > General Settings > Input > Choose subtitle
track > change value from -1 to 0 > OK

Exit vlc and restart movie: no subtitles loaded.
> Video > Subtitle Track > shows only Disable (selected) and
Dansk. The English choice is not there.

Settings > Preferences > General Settings > Input > Choose subtitle
track > change value from -1 to 0 > Save

Exit vlc and restart movie: no subtitles loaded.
> Video > Subtitle Track > shows only Disable and
Dansk (selected). The English choice is not there.

I guess I should learn to understand Japanese. Grin.

[henrique]

Sorry, still didn't work for me.
Settings > Preferences > General Settings > Input > Choose subtitle
track > change value from -1 to 0 > OK

Exit vlc and restart movie: no subtitles loaded.
> Video > Subtitle Track > shows only Disable (selected) and
Dansk. The English choice is not there.

Settings > Preferences > General Settings > Input > Choose subtitle
track > change value from -1 to 0 > Save

Exit vlc and restart movie: no subtitles loaded.
> Video > Subtitle Track > shows only Disable and
Dansk (selected). The English choice is not there.

I guess I should learn to understand Japanese. Grin.

Have you considered the possibility of a bad subtitle?
Try on vobsub.

[jbellies]

No, the English subtitle file (idx or sub) is fine. The problem is that I have to load it by hand every time.

There must be something in the .avi which points to a Danish-language subtitle file.

[henrique]

No, the English subtitle file (idx or sub) is fine. The problem is that I have to load it by hand every time.

There must be something in the .avi which points to a Danish-language subtitle file.

The .idx (Index) file holds information of scheduling, and this info works for all subs. For each language, you must have the .sub (Subtitle) correspondent to that language. So, you should have one .idx file and two (english and dansk) subs, aint it right?

If not, try to search for 'dansk' into both the .idx and the .sub files.

[jbellies]

filename.idx contains the string "Dansk" twice
filename.sub does not contain the word "Dansk" It contains subtitles in English

The movie itself is filename.avi
There are no other .idx or .sub files which pertain to this movie.

I have a hex editor. Should I change the occurrences of Dansk to Engli in
filename.idx, and then rename filename.sub to Engli.sub ?

[henrique]

filename.idx contains the string "Dansk" twice
filename.sub does not contain the word "Dansk" It contains subtitles in English

The movie itself is filename.avi
There are no other .idx or .sub files which pertain to this movie.

I have a hex editor. Should I change the occurrences of Dansk to Engli in
filename.idx, and then rename filename.sub to Engli.sub ?

You can edit .idx files on notepad.
I guess the alternative tag is set on and/or the id/index values are not compatible with your sub file.

This is from a valid .idx file of mine.

******

(...)

# Chinese
id: zh, index: 0
# Decomment next line to activate alternative name in DirectVobSub / Windows Media Player 6.x
# alt: Chinese
# Vob/Cell ID: 1, 1 (PTS: 0)

(...)

# English
id: en, index: 1
# Decomment next line to activate alternative name in DirectVobSub / Windows Media Player 6.x
# alt: English
# Vob/Cell ID: 1, 1 (PTS: 0)

********

Try changing the 'alt' variable value (maybe it's with Dansk) or just comment it's line.
And try to change the id and index values of the english sub declaration on your .idx file. Try to check these values on the .sub file, using your hex editor.

[jbellies]

Thanks, Henrique.

If I load the .idx .sub files manually
> Settings > Preferences X Advanced Options > Subpictures > Use Subtitle File, Browse [select filename.sub] > Save > Stop > Quick Open File [select filename.avi]
the subtitles show perfectly.

I edited filename.idx and changed the two instances of Dansk (which were both commented out with a #) to English, and indeed
> Video > Subtitles Track showed them as English. However,
> Settings > Preferences > Input > Choose Subtitle track [value of zero]
would not show these subtitles; no subtitles showed.

Here is an excerpt from the new filename.idx file:

# Language index in use
langidx: 0

# English
id: en, index: 0
# Decomment next line to activate alternative name in DirectVobSub / Windows Media Player 6.x
# alt: English
# Vob/Cell ID: 1, 1 (PTS: 0)

Items which I changed were Dansk to English twice, changed the id: to en, and changed from
# Vob/Cell ID: 7, 1 (PTS: 0)

The latter change made no difference.

The filename.sub contains no reference to the index. It seems to consist entirely of {###}{####} text <cr><lf> where presumably # represent times to toggle the subtitles.

I have a question. If my movie is filename.avi and my subtitle index file is filename.idx and my English language subtitles are filename.sub, then what would be the name of my French subtitle file? This naming schema, as suggested by DJ, seems to break down if there is more than one subtitle language. The .idx file does not seem to specify filenames, though maybe that is implicit.

So I am still stuck, but I think the problem may be that my subtitles file has the wrong name. It is filename.sub. It should be .... ?

Here is a question that arises from looking at the .idx file:
I very much want to move the subtitles off the screen and onto the black bars.

This setting seems to allow me to do it.
# Force subtitle placement relative to (org.x, org.y)

However, in filename.idx and in all the examples I googled, the setting is always

align: OFF at LEFT TOP

Given
# Original frame size
size: 720x576

how should I set align so that the subtitles will appear in the black bar below the film?

Thanks for your help.

[henrique]

try different values on the parameter: 0, 1, 2, etc.

about the .sub file, my bad, there's only 1 .sub file, with the subtitles for all the supported languages.

about the alignment, try setting those on vlc itself.

[jbellies]

Thanks again, henrique.

try different values on the parameter: 0, 1, 2, etc.

Which parameter? langidx, idx, ...?

about the .sub file, my bad, there's only 1 .sub file, with the subtitles for all the supported languages.

So then the format of my .sub file, with just frame numbers and text, is correct?

about the alignment, try setting those on vlc itself.

I don't know why, but vlc isn't working anymore. I click on the movie, vlc comes up, but no movie loads. I "fast open" the same movie, a screen comes up, but it is just a gray screen.

Is there vlc documentation which specifies which instructions from the .idx file can be over-ridden?

Is there a site which discusses what .idx and .sub files need to look like (in conjunction with vlc if that makes a difference?). A subtitle "language reference", just like C or VisualBASIC or avisynth all have a "Language Reference"? Yes, I have tried using google to find such things.

Of course, I had been hoping not to have to read a Language Reference just to get subtitles to load when the movie loads!

--
Jonathan Berry

[henrique]

The parameter to change I was refering to was the 'Subtitle track' auto load parameter, under VLC preferences.

About VLC not working anymore, maybe you changed the 'video track' load parameter? Tried reinstalling?

PS: got an email?

[jbellies]

Thanks again, henrique!
My email is jberry@islandnet.com

Before reinstalling (and risking, for instance, installing a wrong version, losing my settings, ...?) I always:
1. try again later
2. reboot and try again.

So I tried again later. It started a little slow. And there was a gray screen. But the movie came on. AND SO DID THE SUBTITLES! Under
> Video > Subtitles Track there are three choices: Disable, Track 1 (selected), and Track 2 (English). This is peculiar, but it works so I won't complain.

So, the main problem seems to have solved itself, or more likely the advice offered by henrique was what was needed, but took a while to propagate.

I'd still like to know what are good settings for a slow computer (366 MHz) to avoid jerkiness, still frames (lasting seconds...) and visible interlacing in motion scenes. The same computer is able to play DVDs (from a 2x DVD drive) with only rare artefacts. vlc is playing a divx avi from a fast hard drive. The stream info shows
Stream 0 XVID, 720x336
Stream 1 mpga, 48000 Hz, 256 kb/s
Stream 2 subt
Stream 3 subt English

The sound is very good. There is in fact only one subtitle track, but I'm not arguing, now that it is auto-loading.

With regard to getting the subtitles where I want them, I tried
> Settings > Preferences X Advanced Options > Subpictures > Force SPU Position
which was set at -1. The help box said "You can use this option to place the subtitles under the movie, instead of over the movie. Try several positions." The possible positions seem to be the positive and negative integers, plus zero. I tried a few, and in every case the subtitles show near the bottom of the screen. I would be happiest with subtitles in the black below the movie (they are sub- titles, after all), I would still be happy with them in the bar above the movie. I think it is most unfortunate that the medium has forced the programmers to use this user-unfriendly interface for subtitle positioning. It would be better if the choices had some physical meaning, rather than the magician's "pick a number, any number".

--
Jonathan Berry

[The DJ]

dude 366Mhz is simply too slow. you can try all you want but MPEG4 is by definition a lot more intense then MPEG2. don't ever expect the same performance. There is just that much you can do. At one point "Get a better computer" just applies.

and about subs positioning, it only works for DVDs, and only within the video frame. VLC is unable to draw anything outside the actual video. So if there are black bars within the video, then VLC can draw there. If the black bars are simply there in Fullscreen mode only, then this black is the background color of the fullscreen window. Not part of the video frame, and therefore VLC cannot draw into that.

[jbellies]

Thanks, DJ, for the word about limitations in my computer and in vlc.

Horizontal bars are not part of the movie, so I guess I can never put the subtitles where I want them, in vlc.

What speed (+ other considerations) of (laptop) computer will get consistent good results with divx/xvid/mpeg4 and vlc?

Does showing subtitles put much of an extra strain on vlc? I think that the movie displayed better without them. Very subjective, mind you.

I could probably write a short program in PowerBASIC to display the subtitles on an unused part of the screen. Hmm. Good thing I've still got some hair, because I'm probably looking forward to synchronization issues.

I'm sorry if these are newbie questions, but that's what I am. If there is a source of newbie answers about vlc, subtitles etc, point away!

TIA.

--
Jonathan Berry